How to create an array of bits in Python? : 5 Methods

The array of bits in Python is a data structure that allows you to store sequences of bits like 0 and 1. You can easily manipulate bits stored as an array. However, python does not provide you with a built-in function to store an array of bits. Therefore in this post, you will know how to create an array of bits in Python using various methods.

Methods to create an array of bits in Python

In this section, you will know all the methods that you will use to create an array of bits in Python. Just follow them for better understanding.

Method 1: Using a list of integers

The first method to create an array of bits is the using list. Just creates a list with 0 and 1 as its elements.

sample_bits = [0, 1, 0 ,1,0]
print(sample_bits)

Output

[0, 1, 0, 1, 0]

Method 2: Use string

In this method, you will define the string that will contain 0 and 1. After that, you will use the loop for typecasting each character of the string to an integer using the int() function.

Run the below lines of code to create an array of bits.

sample_bits_str = "01010"
final_bits = [int(bit) for bit in sample_bits_str]
print(final_bits)

Output

[0, 1, 0, 1, 0]

Method 3: Using the array module

The third method you can use to store bits as an array is the use of the array module. This module has a function array() that accepts two parameters that is a type of the array and the array elements. In our case, the byte is represented by “b”.

Run the below lines of code.

import array
sample_bits = array.array('b', [0, 1, 0, 1, 0])
print(sample_bits)

Output

array('b', [0, 1, 0, 1, 0])

Method 4: Use the Numpy module

You can also use the NumPy module for creating the array of bits. You will use the np.array() function that will accept your list of bits and dtype=bool as the parameters.

import numpy as np
sample_bits = np.array([0, 1, 0, 1, 0], dtype=bool)
print(sample_bits)

Output

[False True False True False]

Method 5: Using the bitarray module

You can also use the bit array module to create an array of bits. You have to just pass the list of bits to the bitarray() constructor.

Run the below lines of code to create it.

from bitarray import bitarray
sample_bits = bitarray([0, 1, 0, 1, 0])
print(sample_bits)

Output

[0, 1, 0, 1, 0]

Conclusion

Bits are mostly used to define true or false in your coding. If you want to create an array of bits then you can use the above methods. In this post, you have learned how to use the numpy and bitarray third parties modules to create an array of bits. You can use any of the above methods as per convenience.

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